Monday, November 15, 2010

For the Love of Susan (recycled post from 5/5/2009)

My heart is sad today. Last week my friend Susan was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Yesterday she passed away. Too soon. More than a year ago I had done a blog about my friendship with Susan. I wanted to post it again...


RIP SUSAN WILLIAMS. You will be forever a part of my heart. I miss you "dearling."


Original blog...


Have you ever met someone and you knew immediately that this was the start of a fabulous friendship? It's only happened to me a few times but today I'd like to tell you about one of the most memorable...

A few years ago I was...ummm...insane! Seriously. Okay, not really but looking back I'm fairly certain that a case could have been made. After watching American Idol I started attending A LOT of concerts of one of their previous runners up. I won't name names here but think long-haired rocker. In August 2006 I was scheduled to go to Oroville, California for a concert and realized I didn't know anyone going! Yikes...I was flying literally across the country to attend a concert. So my plans went back and forth and I was supposed to meet up with someone but that plan got changed about a day before I was leaving. So I emailed someone (Susan) that I'd exchanged a couple of emails with and said "I'm flying into LA...can I ride with you to Oroville?" I think it was about an eight hour drive (or so it seemed...if you've not been to Oroville, you wouldn't understand! LOL) Let's just say it's waaaaaaaaaaaay out in West-Nowhere! Does it sound strange that two strangers would agree to carpool for a drive that long? Oh it gets better...

Since I was flying into LA and Susan lived in a suburb...I suggested I would get a hotel close to her house to make pick-up the next morning easier. Being the amazing person she is...she suggested that instead I stay at her house! Now, her husband, son, and daughter were seriously concerned that someone they didn't know (and Susan didn't know) would be sleeping under their roof. Perhaps I should have been worried that I was going to be sleeping in the house with four people I didn't know too? (Evidence of aforementioned insanity!)

Luckily Susan and I hit it off right from the beginning! She's one of the funniest, kindest people I've ever met.

Okay, it would have been really kind if she had pointed out how unflattering my t-shirt tan line was in the shirt I wore to the concert! (LOL)

After the road trip to Oroville we returned to LA and then left the next day for a concert somewhere near Phoenix! It was on this leg of the journey that we discovered we both share a somewhat warped, twisted, sick sense of humor and were playing practical jokes on each other almost immediately. Silly things like Susan doing the "gaslight treatment" on me with her nifty steering-wheel controlled audio system. Or me moving her car while at a rest-stop. As her daughter says "good times!"

Sure, some people get their pictures made with a cactus or something when in Arizona but why not a scrap-metal horse

or a green dinosaur?
It's been over four years since that trip to California. Since then I've been out there three other times. The first time I returned I worried that we wouldn't have anything to talk about since we weren't being occupied by a concert but that worry quickly faded away! Whenever I visit we end up spending HOURS or DAYS talking about all sorts of things! I realize now that some friendships may start for a reason but are built to last for a lifetime! How lucky I am to have had a friendship that is so strong right from the beginning!!!

Thanks so much for stopping by to visit! I hope you are blessed with great friends! I'd love to hear about them!

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